Friday, October 29, 2010

me and you could've been a work of art

I don't like walk-through haunted houses.

I had a traumatic experience at a haunted house down in Florida when I was 17. I write horror movies, I'm fairly desensitized to most horror films at this point, but the fact remains that I do NOT like it when people jump out at me in real life.

This is Today's Entry

Monday, October 25, 2010

Goodbye Kitty

I'd like to die suddenly.

Not a prolonged, debilitating sickness. Not slowly bleeding to death in some serial killer's backyard shed or drowning amidst wreckage in the open ocean. Something sudden enough that I don't have to suffer extravagantly, don't have to deal with hospitals or dwell on the morbid details of settling affairs.

Quick, painless. One flash and I'm gone. With the world left to quarrel over what's left behind. Scripts finished and un-. Mostly unfinished. A little sad that words are really all I've got to leave behind. And a nice tee-vee.

If I could know in advance, I could probably make the time more productive. If it were all gonna end six months from now, I could probably have some fun. If it were three months, I could have a whole lot of fun. If I only had a month left, watch out. And if I knew I was going to snuff out 7 days from now... you'd probably want to hold onto something because I would rip through this city like a hurricane.

Charlie Teh Unicron

Friday, October 22, 2010

Top Chef Lisa Entry

On Sunday, after [some friends of mine were done] participating in the walk-a-thon for Breast Cancer Awareness, we stopped by the UWS Shake Shack then headed t'ward the Central Park playground society....

For some cosmic reason, it seemed to be BABY WEEKEND last weekend. Everybody I went to hang out with seemed to have at least one child.

My Sunday friends found an absolutely massive playground near the southern hemisphere of Central Park. There, we spotted Lisa from TOP CHEF series 4. And I stole the above shot with my DRRRROOOOOIIIIIDDDDD phone.

She was sitting across the way from us and we were trying to divine the narrative. She was either serving as a "big sister" to a young African-American girl, or she and her partner had adopted. The little girl was, perhaps, 8 or 9, and I think I saw her steal a look at me... probably because I'd taken a picture of her Big Sister/Mom. Or because I'm simply irresistible to little black girls. (Probably a little from Column A, a little from Column B.)

A little further on, I was at the swings, pushing my friend's child. For the record, in those rare occasions when I'm entrusted with looking after someone else's child, I'm just trying to make sure they're relatively entertained and don't get abducted by aliens.

Suddenly, I notice Top Chef Lisa's kid run up to the vacant swing right next to me. I heard her call out, "LISA!!! COME HERE!!!"

Then Top Chef Lisa comes over and suddenly we're side-by-side. We are both pushing kids who are not our own. We are both top chefs.

That's my New York story of the week.

As an aside, over the past few months this blog went from averaging about 60 unique hits a day to well over 100 a day. I don't get it. And a lot of random people have been going straight to the archived month of June 2010. Who are you people and why are you here?

Monday, October 11, 2010

Yesterday Was a Million Years Ago

There is a certain comfort in getting the updated credit card statement the month after you've cleared a debt that you've been whittling down for maybe 14 years. That debt represented a succession of unfortunate events that occurred post-college, exacerbated by a staggering of other unfortunate events over the years. Hard to get ahead when you're periodically getting pummeled by obstacles... pay-cuts at work, suffering unemployed stretches, suffering rent changes, paying for a wedding, paying for a divorce...

And through it all, since my early 20s, there was the constant of this beast of credit card debt. A beast that grew and shrank, depending on how well things were going. During the flush stretches, I'd take larger chunks out of it. During the leanest stretches, I paid close to the minimum each month... dreading the appearance of that bloody statement in the mailbox...

Now that it's paid off (thanks to a play I wrote 7 years ago), it really does seem to mark the end of an era. It's a huge thing I no longer have to worry about every month.

Ashes to ashes.

All those bad yesterdays, paid for. Now I need to plot a better tomorrow.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

20/20 Spoils "CATFISH"

I happened to see the movie on Thursday (and liked it) and the 20/20 profile offers a good supplement to the story... but if you HAVEN'T seen the movie, the entire thing gets exposed! Including clips from the ding dang dong moobie! UNIVERSAL was okay with a movie of theirs, which is still in theaters, getting totally spoiled?? When their ad campaign HINGES on "the secret"??

No, the *twist* isn't that difficult to predict. You see it coming from a mile away, but IMHO it doesn't make it less interesting to get to know the full details. The 20/20 show offers some new angles to the story, including fresh interviews. It would be a really good bonus on the DVD... but on its own (I can't emphasize this enough) IT COMPLETELY SPOILS THE MOVIE!!!

FWIW: I think the movie's well made, thoughtfully edited and paced. And despite all the suspicious critics, I'm convinced it's completely real. (This is NOT a Blair Witch movie, nor is it the horror/thriller that the trailer/poster may imply.)

Friday, October 08, 2010

Ivy Higa is a cunt

FREE Super Saver Shipping!

I bought a Dyson vacuum on AMAZON. They cost a small fortune but I've always wanted one and the apartment was in bad need of a really good vacuum. (Especially since I'm the only one who ever cleans this godforsaken place...)

But that's neither here nor there...

To save a few quid, I selected FREE Super Saving Shipping!!! on my order. The time estimate suggested that my cyclone-harnessing wonder-vacuum would arrive in 5-10 days.

MONDAY, October 4: I placed the order.TUESDAY, October 5: Order went through, packaged left the shipping facility.WEDNESDAY, October 6: Vacuum arrived via UPS.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Psycho Chronicles

PSYCHO was an iconic thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, released in the summer of 1960. (That Wiki's an interesting read, btw.)

It was a sensation when it was released. In time, it's become a film school textbook. Which is to say, something that is more often studied and dissected and analysed rather than actually enjoyed as regular entertainment.

I was watching the ending of Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot 1998 remake on cable recently and the thing intrigued me. There was all this noise back then about why Van Sant would bother shooting a virtually shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's classic. It seemed like a colossal waste of time to a lot of whiners, but I remember being intrigued by it because I'd heard a rumor that Van Sant's movie was only shot-for-shot until the shower scene... and then it would go in a completely different direction... which would have been an awesome surprise. Like a ride you've been on a thousand times that suddenly goes down a different track.

But no. It turned out to be exactly what it advertised. A shot-for-shot remake in color. With the exception of a few shots Van Sant created the way Hitchcock would've wanted if he had the technology and a few other random inserts and Van Santisms.

Still, Van Sant's faithful experiment, in its own way, serves as a useful teaching tool. A strapping young Vince Vaughn takes on the role of Norman Bates, and the shot-for-shot nature of the film only serves to highlight how Vaughn is wrong for the role originated by Anthony Perkins. Where Perkins was skinny and slight, Vaughn (the 1998 Vince Vaughn) was fit and handsome. Though he tries to play up the social awkwardness, there is something far more intimidating about him upfront. Perkins worked so well because he was the portrait of "non-threatening". Perkins played it as a naive adolescent. Vaughn comes across as an awkward frat boy who'd probably have a healthy stock of date-rape pills in his cupboard.

But beyond the remake, the cable's been playing all the PSYCHO movies... this is what I find interesting about the *series*...

[* I don't think PSYCHO IV counts as much because it was made for television.]

I find the sequels interesting because they are not "reboots". (A popular idea in modern Hollywood movie-making wherein the continuity of the series is WIPED CLEAN and we start over with a fresh re-imagining of the movie series... including changing up the look of the films, tinkering with characters, setting, backstory, the works... see BATMAN BEGINS.) No, 1983's PSYCHO II is a direct sequel to 1960's PSYCHO. Anthony Perkins reprises his role as Norman Bates. It takes place in the current day, as Norman is released from a mental institution where he's been locked up since the events of the original film. There's more violence and nudity than they could get away with in 1960... but it doesn't really struggle with the weight of original's reputation. It's simply a continuation of the saga.

It's strange looking back at the two PSYCHO movies from the 80s because it's also a portrait of a different Hollywood. These were hard R-rated horror movies. These days, there's so much more hand-wringing and double-guessing before a movie gets greenlit, and it often shows in the final products. There's a different feel to a movie that's been rewritten by a dozen different writers. The PSYCHO sequels may not be classics, but there's a certain charm to them that is hard to find in the modern Hollywood sausage-factory blockbuster.